The Chicago Sun Times weighs in on how a team of "Rudys" took down mighty Notre Dame. Once again, Paul Johnson does more with less than ANYONE in the country. Maybe in the history of college football.
And you wonder why Navy's defense has ranked so bad this year??
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How about Navy, people?
The service academy's dedication to pressing matters such as steering battleships and maintaining nuclear submarines makes football something it can embrace only as a ferocious after-school passion undertaken by the few, the proud, the rejected.
Why, Navy's adrenaline-fueled, David-slaying-Goliath, heart-pounding goal-line stand at the end of that triple-overtime battle made ''Rudy'' look like a frat-house vanity film.
Navy didn't have a Rudy -- it was infested with Rudys.
''We had only two defensive starters coming back this season,'' Navy associate athletic director Scott Strasemeier said, ''and we lost them both on the first series of the second game. We've started 23 guys on defense so far, a school record.''
More than that, Navy already has started 11 players in its secondary.
Against Notre Dame, 18-year-old, 175-pound freshman Kevin Edwards started for the Middies at cornerback, his first start.
Fellow teenage freshman Wyatt Middleton, whose sister graduated from Notre Dame, started at safety and led the team with 14 tackles.
''The vast majority of our players had no other Division I offers,'' Strasemeier said. ''They came here because nobody else wanted them. And to a man, they came here because they wanted to play Notre Dame.''
Even if it meant getting steamrolled for, say, years 64, 65, 66 ad nauseam.
Navy had guys on the field Saturday you wouldn't notice in real life unless they had birdbaths on their heads.
The Middies' two starting running backs, Zerbin Singleton and Reggie Campbell, go 5-8, 174 and 5-6, 168.
When team captain Campbell came out for the coin toss, standing next to the Notre Dame giants, one wanted to rush out and yell, ''This kid's lost. Where's his mommy?''
There was even a Navy player -- walk-on reserve defensive end Steve Dorman, from a small town in Washington -- who got into the game and thus played in his first football contest, at any level, any age, down to birth.
Everywhere you looked on the Navy side, there were young men whose hearts were twice the size of their uniforms.
Navy's quarterback, 5-11, 194-pound Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada (''We just call him Kaipo,'' the SID said) might not even be your first pick in a flag football league.
But Kaipo completed some of the sweetest, most pressure-packed passes you'll ever see.
Navy's ''D'' had gotten five sacks all year, and then they sacked Notre Dame's Evan Sharpley four times.
One of those sacks was created by perhaps the most ridiculous, improper, joyous play of this or any season: Navy's outside linebacker Ramiro Vela launching himself like Batman over Irish blocker Armando Allen and swan-diving into Sharpley.
''The linebacker, 34, I forget his name off the top of my head, launches over Armando's head,'' Weis said afterward, not too happily.
They call him Ram, Coach, or as he's now known in Annapolis, ''Super Ram,'' and he's a mighty kid from San Antonio who goes a superhuman 5-9, 196.
A D-I linebacker, folks.
Maybe you even want to include Navy no-name coach Paul Johnson in the hero mix.
After Notre Dame had curiously been given a second chance at a two-point conversion to tie the game in the third overtime, Johnson told his players to blitz.
All 11 of them.
Some players were quizzical.
''Just sell out!'' Johnson said. ''They're gonna run it. If they pass, it's on me.''
Notre Dame did run it. The Middies did blitz.
And if you don't think this was a game that made the angels sing, you got no religion at all.
ND gets 'Rudy' awakening
25 comments:
No, I wonder why it's so much worse than Army's and Air Force's.
Navy's defense this year has been decimated by injuries to key personnel. Three guys went down in quick succession, who had the experience to move the less experienced personnel into the correct positions and to call coverages.
You are taking one bad defensive season and turning it into the only one that counts. Navy gave up an average of 19.5 points in 2006 and 24 in 2005. Compare that to this year's Florida team: 25.2 points per game and Georgia: 22.4 points per game. I would say giving up 28 points in regulation is an improvement over giving up 59 to a Division I-AA school.
And with equal athletes, I watched a Paul Johnson offense hang 58 on Jim Tressel (you know, that guy at Ohio State) and Youngstown State in 1999 while only giving up 14 points to win the National Title.
Melinda
Oops. I'll correct myself. It was 59-24. Sorry!
Melinda
Navy lost a safety and a linebacker for the year, and that's enough to make it arguably the worst defense in I-A? Unacceptable. Injuries happen at Nebraska too. That doesn't give our coaches an excuse to fail. It shouldn't be an excuse for Johnson, either.
This season counts more than the rest because it illustrates Johnson's fundamental problem. He coaches the offense. Navy's best players end up on that side of the ball. They are paying for it now.
They gave up 59 points to a I-AA team, and you're hanging your hat on the "improvement" of holding the last-ranked offense in I-A to 44 points.
I truly do not understand your argument. No defense at any level of football is going to lose ALL of their starters from the previous year and make improvements. That would be considered a classic rebuilding year. The Navy coaches simplified their packages on defense and made a 31 point improvement during one week. You dismiss anything that doesn't agree with your opinion just because YOU don't think it matters. That's not a very convincing argument. This guy has been a head coach for 10 years. This is the worst defense of those ten years, due to inexperience and injuries, and you are making out like it is the norm. That is simply not true. Why would a defensive unit decimated by injury and the loss of 9 starters to graduation be judged more harshly than the previous one. Why do you choose to ignore the stats I gave you? Do you not like facts? Do you just like to pick and choose those that support your argument and ignore the rest?
Paul Johnson will eventually coach somewhere besides Navy and he will make improvements at that school. I do not think it will be Nebraska. So I guess our bantering is moot anyway. :-D
Melinda
I am not making it out to be the norm. I am making it out to be the end result of a process. Your stats show a defense that gets progressively worse each year.
Having a down year is one thing. Being one of the worst in all of I-A is another. Giving up almost 60 to a I-AA team is yet another.
You call Notre Dame "improvement," but it was still the 119th-ranked offense's highest point total of the year-- with or without overtime.
No. You didn't look at the stats closely. They were BETTER in 2006 than they were in 2005. That's not progressively worse. And in 2002 and 2003 the games were decided by a touchdown or less and the scores did not get above the 20s. Aren't most head coaches one or the other... an "offensive guy" or a "defensive guy" since most of them were coordinators of one or the other before they became head coaches? Which candidates do you think Nebraska should seriously consider for Callahan's replacement when he is finally fired (because he does not have the class to resign now)?
Navy's "best" don't end up on the offensive side of the ball. It is much harder to make up for a lack of size and speed on defense. Navy's offensive personnel are no faster or more athletic than the guys on defense. Look what a big difference USC's loss of their starting quarterback made in their season. Why wouldn't the same thing be true when you lose the "quarterback" on defense... the captain who is out there calling coverages?
No comment on Johnson beating Jim Tressel's Youngstown State team? Or should I say routing them in a National Championship game?
Melinda
Youngstown State was the underdog in that game and not expected to make it that far. They were overmatched.
I anxiously await your round of excuses for Navy's defense this week.
Why would anyone make excuses for the Navy defense? They are what they are. Inexperienced, undersized and incredibly outmanned in the talent department.
On the same hand, we could say that Navy's offense, with similar personnel as their defense, is better than USC, OU, Arkansas etc since they have outscored the common opponents of those teams. I simply wonder what PJ would do with Oklahoma talent on both sides of the ball (or Nebraska talent) since he does so much more with so much less at Navy. Anyone who says otherwise, doesn't know their head from their ass.
If you want to hire Johnson as an offensive coordinator, it would be a great move. Head coach? Not so much.
He's a head coach. Period. He is one of about 7 coaches in the country that calls his own plays so he pretty much is an offensive coordinator. Maybe Pelini would be his DC?? (sarcasm).
I don't offer any excuses except a combination of inexperience and injuries. It was a terrible showing. Terrible. No way to defend (pardon the pun :-D) that fact. But it isn't like they have all their starters healthy and are just completely that awful. They started their 11th person in the secondary against Notre Dame. ELEVENTH! Navy's thirdstringers aren't going to be able to defend well at all.
A play-off team still shouldn't give up 58 points in a Championship game. "They were an underdog"... that's a little lame. Florida was an underdog in the National Title hunt last year and still managed to win.
I notice you also chose to ignore your mistake on the defensive states improving from 2005 to 2006.
Melinda
I'm sorry, but you would have to be Mrs. Johnson to think that someone coaching a defense that bad is even remotely considerable as the next Nebraska head coach. Having a bad defense is one thing, but Navy's is bad on a historic scale. Paul Johnson's strength is his offense, and offense isn't our problem. Defense is.
How is Bo Pelini's offense doing this year? Oh that's right he doesn't know a thing about running an offense.
Yep when Bo is hired, it will be all shutouts. Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State-yeah he'll shut them down cold (sarcasm).
You wouldn't have to be Mrs. Johnson if you understood that the problems on defense are created by a lack of experience and an unusually high number of season-ending injuries.
This is Johnson's 6th year at Navy. The first class he recruited at Navy put forth its best defense in those six years. 2006 with an average of 19.5 points allowed per game. The 2004 team allowed 19.8 points per game. I think if he were that awful a coach when it comes to defense, teams would have been historically bad well before his 6th year. I notice a trend here: when someone presents you with facts that seem to disprove what you are saying, you ignore them. Eagerly waiting your response! :-D
Melinda
My response is that this year speaks for itself and effectively takes him out of consideration for the Nebraska job. And I also wonder where that magic "improvement" against Notre Dame went. You ignore plenty yourself.
Injuries are no excuse. Having an off year is one thing. Having a year that breaks records for futility is another. We need a coach that can prevent these things from happening. Clearly, Johnson is not that coach. No matter how much you try to shove it down my throat, two season-ending injuries are no excuse for a defense this bad. 62 points to North Texas? How many records did their quarterback set?
I just don't think that five seasons of a defense ranked in the top half of I-A can be wiped out by one bad year. Even a historically bad year. There was an improvement in defense against Notre Dame. Four Sacks in one game versus five on the year. A defensive touchdown, too. And an absolute collapse again against North Texas. No denying it. Most of North Texas' touchdowns came on big, big pass plays. When you are down to third stringers in the secondary.... that combination isn't good.
They do indeed have a HORRIBLE defense this year and I would have to be Mrs. Johnson to deny that. I don't think, however, you can attribute it to coaching because problems would have shown up well before now. I think it is a bad combination of injuries and inexperience.
If Johnson has had five years of defenses better than at least 50% of the rest of I-A schools, do you really think he would have this year's numbers with the size and speed of Nebraska players?!
Look at the Chicago Bears. They lost Tank Johnson and Tommie Harris, Urlacher is playing hurt and their defense has collapsed. They look nothing like the Super Bowl-bound defense of last year. Again, USC's quarterback goes down and they are a two-loss team now. Injuries do make a big impact. Sorry to shove it down your throat yet again, but I like to argue!
:-)
Melinda
"He" wouldn't have anything with Nebraska's players because "he" doesn't have anything to do with defense. That is the point. He virtually ignores the defense, and it's biting him this year.
You can talk about Navy's defenses in the past all you want, but Nebraska is not going to hire a coach who is having the exact same problem that Callahan is having this year. And you are wrong about your statistics. Johnson's defenses have finished in the top half of the country in total defense only twice in 6 years, and it hasn't happened since 2004. In '03 and '04 they were ranked somewhere inthe 40s, '05 and '06 somewhere in the 60s, and this year... you don't want to go there.
So lets put aside the fact that Navy doesn't have the talent of Wayne State on defense.
If your assumption about Johnson not working with the defense holds true, then are we to expect a bunch of 7-6 type games if Pelini is the head coach? Beings that he's never coached an offense and all...
If Navy doesn't have the talent of Wayne State, then that is a recruiting issue and not something that is a credit to Johnson. Johnson himself said before the season that this might be his most talented defense since he's been at Navy, so I don't think you are correct. Either that, or Johnson himself was wrong, in which case we wouldn't want to hire him because he can't evaluate talent.
Hiring Pelini would certainly carry some risk because head coach is a far different job than coordinator. Being a good coordinator doesn't necessarily translate to being a good head coach. I know nothing about how Pelini would run a team, although at the very least he would address our biggest problem, defense. But of course, solving short-term problems is only the first step.
Nobody knows how Pelini would handle the offense. We do know how Paul Johnson handles defense, though; he doesn't. That won't even solve our immediate problem.
Johnson is a good coach. He IS limited by the type of player he can recruit at Navy. He has recruited well enough to to turn the program into a winner. They cannot recruit big linemen. It's not a choice. All of Navy's recruits must meet the academic and physical requirements of the academy. You can scheme around that on offense, but it is harder on defense. Air Force has implemented some policies that Navy does not (red-shirting for example) that gives them a little more flexibility in terms of experience. His defenses were good at GSU with the exception of one season when he had to force the defensive coordinator to make changes (Our DC that year was Erk Russell's son and their was a reluctance to fire him because of Erk's status as "The Man" who started our football program). He implemented a bend and don't break defensive strategy to help overcome the deficiencies his defensive players face because of their lack of size and speed. And it has worked every year until this one. The defenses haven't been wonderful for the most part (I'll apologize here for getting my stats wrong earlier. You were right, I misread the article I was sourcing), but they have done enough to win games.
He would use a different policy at Nebraska, or any other school with bigger, speedier athletes. The type of athletes who can fly to the ball and knock defenders and linemen off the ball. He is a smart football coach. And I think, even though he hasn't coached at a big school before and thus we have nothing to judge by, that he would be a great fit at Nebraska. As my husband said years ago before they hired Callahan: "Imagine what he (Johnson) could do with the kind of athletes he could get at Nebraska. The offense would be beautiful." And I think the
defense would improve greatly too.
Melinda
Air Force does not redshirt. And again, all these restrictions were not new this year, and they aren't unique to Navy. Army and Air Force have them as well.
It doesn't make sense to hire someone and assume he's going to change into what you want after you hire him. Why not just hire what you want in the first place? What you've just said reminds me way too much about how Callahan ended up here to begin with. I'm sick of being run by an "offensive genius" while the Blackshirts crumble.
I also don't understand why so many people consider him such a great fit. Other than running the option, is there any other reason? I like to think that there's more to Nebraska than just option football. And while I don't have anything against Johnson's offense, it isn't even close to what we ran here before the Callahan experiment. I don't see how Johnson is any better a fit than anyone else.
I didn't understand why Nebraska hired Callahan after his Oakland melt-down. Sure he took them to the Super Bowl, but he freaked out that everyone had his offense figured out afterward and complete tossed his playbook. Why would you hire a mental case like that? And how many times has it been proven that good NFL coaches do not necessarily make good college coaches and vice versa? Charlie Weis, Callahan, and Wannstedt are just the latest examples.
Johnson, however, has proven that he can coach college athletes. They go hard in practice. They play hard in games. Players who don't put forth the expected effort have to "carry the loaf" (run with a weight). I think looking at his GSU accomplishments tell more about what he could do at Nebraska than looking at what he does at Navy. Georgia Southerns athletes were actually better than the ones he has at Navy. The defenses were better and the offense looked even smoother.
You obviously aren't going to change my mind and I won't change yours. I have watched Johnson coach for years and he has always impressed me. I firmly believe he will do a great job when he is tapped by a traditional football power school, whoever that is. I think he adapts well to his personnel and inspires confidence and a great attitude in his players. He doesn't feed the fans/media any bull.... he calls it like he sees it. He runs a clean program and has made improvements at every school he has been too. A rebuilding year at Southern constituted a semi-final play-off loss. Navy hasn't had a losing record since his first year.
It is going to be very hard to find a head coach who is not one or the other: offensive-minded or defensive-minded. You would prefer a defensive minded coach? (No tone implied, just an honest question). Who strikes you as the best candidates for the job?
P.S. I've enjoyed arguing/debating with you this week. I like a good argument.
Melinda
I don't have anything against Paul Johnson as far as his offense goes, or how he handles the media or motivates his players or things like that. In fact, I think he'd take us to bowl games regularly with consistent 8-4 type records. Admittedly that's better than what we have now, but I just don't think he'd take us to a conference championship level. I think Nebraska would end up being the Texas Tech of the north, with some mad wizard on offense and a defense that never reaches the level it needs to. While every coach has an offensive or defensive background, they don't necessarily favor one side of the ball over the other. Guys like Johnson do, because his bread and butter is his offense. I just feel like we'd be making the same mistake that we made with Callahan in that sense. Johnson's record at Georgia Southern was impressive, but having a semiautonomous defensive coordinator is a lot easier to swing in the SoCon than it is in the Big XII. You need to be the complete package to win this conference, and I feel that Johnson's philosophy just leaves too many questions in that area for him to be hired here. There are far more Mike Leach and Guy Morris types in the world-- offensive gurus who never reach that championship level-- than there are Spurriers.
Actually, he's probably the most perfect fit at his current job than anywhere else. Since service academy defenses are probably always going to be below average anyway, their best bet is to have one of those mad scientists like Johnson running their offense.
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